Ontario Empoblog

Celebrity Smack has moved (I still have to update my links), and one of the first posts at the new location includes reviews of a couple of bands that appeared at Universal CityWalk. These guys remind me of a few bands all melded together. Sublime, RHCP and lot's of Rage Against the Machine roots in my opinion. My husband and I were glad that we decided to wait in line to see them. Nearly everyone at the club that night was there to see 'Resurrect Effect'. And now for the follow up band, 'A.D.M.'. We were really enjoying ourselves by the time the next band came around. The place was still packed. And then the band 'A.D.M.' came on. They were a bit late getting started. Then they had to ask another band for a high hat. I am supposing the couldn't find theirs. They already seemed a mess. Yes, it was a sign of things to come.... ...The female 'backup singer' (a.k.a. Useless broad) stopped singing her part in the middle of a sentence and said someth...

Over the wires - 12 recent celebrity deaths: Patsy Ramsey, who was thrust into the national spotlight by the unsolved 1996 slaying of her daughter, 6-year-old beauty pageant contestant JonBenet, died Saturday following a long battle with ovarian cancer, her lawyer said. She was 49. I'd like to hope that the whole episode dissuaded parents from manufacturing their kids into beauty queens, but I doubt it. Aaron Spelling captivated generations of television viewers with shows like "Charlie's Angels" and "Beverly Hills 90210" and left an indelible stamp on American pop culture, but he never won the critical acclaim he sought....Spelling died Friday at his Los Angeles mansion after suffering a stroke on June 18, according to publicist Kevin Sasaki. He was 83. Yet Aaron Spelling will probably be remembered long after Dick Cavett has been forgotten. A 176-year-old tortoise believed to be one of the world's oldest living creatures...known as Harriet, died at the...

From Britney Spearmint, I ended up viewing the work of a Kathryn Coman, who took some time listing the sons and daughters of Sun Myung Moon , including Hyun Jin Nim . Apparently genealogy and family are as important for the Unification Church as they are for the Latter Day Saints. Here's what religioustolerance.org has to say: The Unification Church is a profoundly family-centered Church. Members are expected to remain celibate during their youth. They are to subsequently marry, have children, and create an ideal family which contributes to world peace. [In the LDS Church] [t]he "family" level is composed of a husband, wife and children; the husband is considered the head of the family; the wife is intended to be the primary care giver; both share authority over the children. There are also orthdox Christian groups (e.g. Focus on the Family) which give primacy to the family - something that Jesus didn't do , by the way: Luke 12:51-53 (New International Version) New I...

I know a family who's moving to Kentucky. Sounds like they'll have fun : Next time you criticize China for controlling its citizens' Google results, look at what's happening in our own country, by a Republican governor no less. Kentucky state employees are finding themselves mysteriously unable to access a blog that has been critical of Gov. Ernie Fletcher, who has recently been in the center of a state hiring scandal. "It's outrageous; it shows that we are in the People's Republic of Kentucky now — that government will block political speech that it does not approve of," says Mark Nickolas of banned blog http://www.bluegrassreport.org . The Bluegrass Institute, Kentucky's premier free-market think tank and a Townhall.com partner, also found its blog blocked for awhile, but thankfully it's accessible again. Not that the Bluegrass Institute is delighted about the apparent favoritism : The Herald-Leader has picked up on the fact that the Bluegra...

See here . From the Ontario Empoblog (Latest OVVA news here )

No, I was not the first person to blog the phrase "Britney Spearmint." There are other occurrences. Emphasis mine: Well, skewering a windbag like [Sun Myung] Moon is like shooting fish in a barrel, or more accurately, like strafing a mutant, glowing, lemon-lime-Koolaid-colored alien garden slug five miles long from your Flying Tiger, with your twin 50-caliber wing-mounted machine guns blazing: you can fill him chock-full of lead, but he just keeps on ingesting villages, factories, whole cities, radioactive waste dumps, etc., oblivious to your pathetic pinpricks. Maybe we should just let him keep on slimin'. More interesting is the occasion itself: apparently a generic honor-the-constituents- and-fat-cats affair, a tedious but essential part of modern stop'n'shop democracy. The president himself has to put in his time handing out the Presidential Medal of Freedom to such luminaries as the Pope, Hulk Hogan, Robert Downey Jr. and Britney Spearmint , when he'd cl...

From The Scotsman, December 2005 : [A] judge in New Mexico ordered multi-millionaire TV star David Letterman to keep away from Colleen Nestler - a decision his lawyers described as ludicrous. Mr Letterman, she claims, announced his intention to marry her by using "code words, eye gestures and facial expressions" on his late-night show, and also planned to train her to be his co-host. She said that his "mental cruelty" had prevented her from sleeping properly for more than a decade. This was eventually thrown out on a technicality : Later in the proceeding, [District Judge Daniel] Sanchez — who said it is his common practice to read filings in a case thoroughly — asked [Colleen] Nestler whether her allegations against Letterman took place in New Mexico. “They haven’t , no,” she said. “They have all taken place when I was in the East and before I moved to the East.” Sanchez then clarified the question, asking if any contacts took place in New Mexico between her and Le...

It happens without fail. Someone writes about "Person X," and people automatically assume that Person X is doing the writing. I talked about this before . It all started when Annika blogged about an e-mail to Lindsay Lohan. (At the end of the post, Annika notes, "i got a strange response. From somebody named Mailer Daemon. Must be her publicist.") Initially, the comments were from Annika's friends, and the usual people who lap up all that is Annika. But after a couple of weeks, people started writing TO Annika: lindsay lohan i want to know you, please can you send me a mail to my email adress to know me and then we can talk in the msn please give an oportunity' Posted by: David on Mar. 12, 2005 Dear Lindsay or whoever is reading, Hey, what's up? I would like to know more about Lindsay Lohan. If anyone know her phone no & e-mail or one of them pls give it to me.If this e-mail reads it lindsasy lohan ,can u give me your phone no & e-mail pls. Than...

I'm getting a lot of hits because of 2004 posts ( example ) about Cynthia Matthews, so it's appropriate to report this 2006 California primary news: Congressman David Dreier won his primary with 65 percent of the vote, well ahead of second place finisher Sonny Sardo, a La Cañada Flintridge business owner. Cynthia Matthews won the Democratic primary by 2,500 votes over newcomer Russ Warner. American Independent Elliot Graham and Libertarian Ted Brown won their primaries, as well. While John and Ken aren't promoting her this time around, Matthews (now known as Cynthia Rodriguez Matthews) is certainly campaigning : Responsibility and hard work are our nation's greatest strengths. Leadership is needed to provide the protection of Labor, best schools for our children, growth opportunities for businesses, healthcare for the elderly, fiscal responsibility for our future, safe neighborhoods for our families and a clean environment for all. We need leaders that believe the same...

We talk about tree-sitting at a very young age. Just a few weeks ago, I found myself uttering the words, "[co-worker] and [another person], sittin' in a tree...." So obviously the whole idea of tree-sitting resonates in us beginning in our youth. Tree-sitting is a wonderful thing. It engages your senses - the visual sense of seeing the world from above, the hearing sense of listening to the rustling of the leaves, the smelling sense of the scent of the bark, and the tactile sense of feeling bark, leaves, and smooth branches as you're up in the tree. (And if you choose to eat part of the tree, you can engage the sense of taste.) Gardening, growing, and harvesting are other things that are very nice and wonderful. You give life to plants, allow them to grow, then harvest them for sustenance and medical needs. A true thing of beauty. Some baby seal clubbers want to limit your right to sit in trees and grow crops by expressing views about things like "property" ...

From Mitzee and Rambling Rhodes and uj-vixxy . Edited. just got an e about 'bad break ups'. tis funny. one says "Lost Dog; Breed, Slut; Likes to sniff..(coke).. Answers to Heather Malone; last seen; [enjoying the company of] Mike Froland." And there's a story (from Shora ) behind the advertisement: I know her!! She and Mike have been engaged for almost a year. Rick, the guy who created and posted these, is her ex-boyfriend. She ditched him after catching him boinking her sister in the woods behind her parents' house during a family party. Rick has some serious issues and this is his way of getting back at her. Heather is an absolute sweetheart and is mortified by all this. You're awful Mitz for propagating it! (ok, I totally made all that up) Meanwhile, it turns out that Heather Malone is a fictional character in a Barbara Delinsky novel, An Accidental Woman. Cindy Lynn Speer provides a synopsis : Heather Malone and her beloved Micah Smith are awakened ...

In deference to my vast worldwide audience, I am going to use the word "football" throughout this post, except when referring to one particular sports network. I am now in my football kick. A couple of years ago, we switched from analog cable to digital cable, and I began watching Fox Soccer Channel (which was probably still called Fox Sports World at the time). After we dropped digital cable, I returned to my ignorance of all things football. But when we got satellite, as well as the ability to record shows for later replay, I got back into the football mode, taping the 4:30 am Saturday English Premier League games for later viewing, and figuring out who Michelle Lissel and Hayley McQueen are. (Lissel, by the way, is on location in Germany. Hello! Hello! ) Normally I absolutely positively hate to watch tape-delayed sports, but I made an exception for English Premier League games, since they'd be relatively new to me, and I wouldn't have to worry about hearing the s...

[6/13 corrected Waylon Jennings lyric - Amanda is not the light of my wife] Or, why some Americans (namely me) are more stupid than others. (Warning: the following post includes tons of song references that follow no rhyme or reason, other than the facts of life that moonlight feels right. Just ignore them and remember that love stinks.) Way up north, beyond Azusa (more later), beyond Palmdale, like way up in Sweden and Finland, the graduates wear white caps that resemble navy caps. But they're not. Take it away , Gili: Thos[e] Popeye caps are not...navy hats but old tradition in Finland (and Sweden) as graduation caps. The BBC reported this in a serious voice: In Finland 'Vappu' is, along with New Year's Eve, the biggest carnival-style festivity in the country. The celebration calls for an extravagant amount of balloons, whistles of many sorts and paper decorations combined with excessive consumption of alcohol. From the end of the 19th Century, 'Vappu' has be...

Working two song references into one title - nice. After returning from Independence Hall and other locations, it came time for the junior high graduation week/weekend, which included the awards ceremony (which I missed), the graduation itself, the class party (which, like Mary's , included taquitos ), and the family party. (Which reminds me of a third song reference - "Party All The Time"). My daughter's departure from her K-8 school was different from my departure from my K-6 school. She was sentimental, realizing that even though she'll see most of her friends at high school, things wouldn't be the same. In my case, I skipped the steps (you weren't supposed to skip the steps), ran (you weren't supposed to run) across the grass (you weren't supposed to cross the grass), and...well, that was the end of my heck-raising. Although the school DID close shortly thereafter, something they blamed on "demographics." Of course, my generation (fo...

What I didn't photograph were the barriers surrounding the entire Independence Hall area, which prevent trucks from driving up to the building (similar to what they have at the White House). A building representing freedom (the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution) requiring protection from terrorist attack. There's a message in there somewhere. From the Ontario Empoblog (Latest OVVA news here )

On a business trip outside of California, wondering what Pat Robertson's up to : According to the CBN Web site, Robertson worked his way up to lifting a ton with the help of his physician, who is not named. The posting does not say when the lift occurred, but a CBN spokeswoman released photos to The Associated Press that she said showed Robertson lifting 2,000 pounds in 2003, when Robertson was 73. He is now 76.... The CBN Web site attributes Robertson's energy in part to "his age-defying protein shake." The site offers a recipe for the shake, which contains ingredients such as soy protein isolate, whey protein isolate, flaxseed oil and apple cider vinegar. But Virginians are obviously better at this thing than wimpy Florida football players, according to the Michigan Football Forum : [T]he leg-press record for football players at Florida State is 1,335 pounds by Dan Kendra. Yeah, but does Kendra have video evidence ? HEALTH How Pat Robertson Leg Pressed 2,000 Pounds ...

It's that time of year again. Tomorrow, June 6, is primary day in the state of California. And if I get so disgusted with the Republican Party's ineffective border control and ineffective budget control policies that I end up writing in Jim Gilchrist for all the partisan offices, don't be surprised. But there are a lot of non-partisan offices up for grabs tomorrow, including a few Superior Court Judge positions. Perhaps there are different parameters in Oakland, but in the Inland Empire, it's very apparent that the secret to winning a judge seat is to be "tough on crime." Here's an example of what a typical candidate statement for Superior Court Judge might look like out here: Hello, I'm Bob Smith and I want to be Superior Court Judge for District 6. I have been a District Attorney for 17 years and have locked up many violent offenders and thrown away the key. I want you to know that I support the death penalty, and I am not afraid to sentence criminal...

Some mother/son relationships just don't go that well. Some recently-discovered letters shed some light into the relationship between Mary Todd Lincoln and Robert Lincoln. Details are in American Heritage : In August 1875, after spending three months in a sanitarium in Batavia, Illinois, put there by her son against her will, Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of the martyred President, wrote: “It does not appear that God is good, to have placed me here. I endeavor to read my Bible and offer up my petitions three times a day. But my afflicted heart fails me and my voice often falters in prayer. I have worshipped my son and no unpleasant word ever passed between us, yet I cannot understand why I should have been brought out here.” This letter, along with 24 others, completely unknown and unpublished, was recently discovered in a steamer trunk owned by the children of Robert Todd Lincoln’s attorney. They are known as the “lost” insanity letters of Mary Lincoln, and their discovery will forever ...